Smart News Arts & Culture

New Statue Immortalizes Mary Thomas, Who Led a Revolt Against Danish Colonial Rule

It is the city’s first public monument to a black woman

Two related images from The Book of Ishness, a sketchbook of abstract paintings that Tolkien began while he was an undergraduate at Exeter College, Oxford. The images date from early 1914 when Tolkien was in his third year.

Europe

Unseen Illustrations by J.R.R. Tolkien Are Coming to Oxford

“Tolkien: Maker of Middle Earth,” opening at the Bodleian libraries this summer, will include manuscripts, letters, maps and artwork

An original drawing of 'The Palace of the Sun' by Charles Le Brun, designed to be painted on the ceiling of the Grand salon of Vaux-le-Vicomte.

Europe

Never Realized 17th-Century Fresco Will Be Digitally Recreated at French Château

The masterpiece was originally planned by the great French painter Charles Le Brun

CARNE y ARENA, 2017. A user in the experience.

Future of Art

VR Installation of Crossing U.S.-Mexico Border Comes to Nation's Capital

"Carne y Arena," by Academy Award-winning Mexican filmmaker Alejandro G. Iñárritu, will run in D.C. through August

Mary McLeod Bethune in 1949

Trending Today

U.S. Capitol’s Statuary Hall Collection Will Get Its First State-Commissioned Statue of a Black American

A statue of educator and civil rights activist Mary McLeod Bethune will replace a statue of a Confederate general

Eldgjá, Iceland

A Violent Volcanic Eruption Immortalized in Medieval Poem May Have Spurred Iceland’s Adoption of Christianity

A new study looks for traces of the devastating volcanic event in a poem composed in approximately 961 A.D.

The Temptations

Library of Congress Adds ‘The Sound of Music,’ ‘My Girl’ to National Recording Registry

Each year since 2002, 25 recordings that impacted American culture are chosen for inclusion in the growing database. Read about the class of 2017

In this 12th century illuminated manuscript Mary Magdalene announces the resurrection to the apostles.

Cool Finds

New Exhibition Unfolds the "Bizarre" Stories Behind Centuries-Old Pigments

Cow urine is one of many strange ingredients included in the University of Manchester's new show exploring the history and chemistry of artists' palettes

Landmark Exhibition Takes You Inside the Exuberant, Diverse World of the Fatimid Dynasty

Toronto’s Aga Khan Museum brings together 87 pieces from collections across the globe

Investigators on Lookout for 314 Items Stolen From Carnegie Library’s Rare Books Room

A first edition of Isaac Newton’s “Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica” was among the items taken

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Coming Soon

Become a Nicer, Gentler Neighbor With This Trailer for a Documentary About Mister Rogers

To mark the late children's television visionary's 90th birthday, Focus Features teases a clip of "Won't You Be My Neighbor?"

Excavation of Antioch-on-the-Orontes

2,000-Year-Old Mosaics Unearthed Under Florida Art Museum

The relics came from ancient Antioch and were buried by museum officials in 1989 for storage purposes

The Stephen Foster statue will be replaced with a monument in honor of an African American woman who made an outsized impact on Pittsburgh.

Monument to a Historic Black Woman Will Replace Racist Statue in Pittsburgh

A city task force is asking the public to help decide who should be honored

Stalin, Leningrad, USSR, 1978

Found: 30,000 Photographs by the ‘Russian Vivian Maier’

The photographer’s daughter stumbled upon the photo-films in the family attic

Undated photo provided by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service shows fake Native American styled-jewelry seized by federal officials during a 2015 investigation in New Mexico.

Trending Today

Investigators Crack Down on Fraudulent Native American Jewelry

In April, Albuquerque jewelry dealer Nael Ali is set to be sentenced under the 1935 Indian Arts and Crafts Act

See Classic Sculptures Reimagined With Prosthetic Limbs

The aid organization Handicap International outfitted statues in France with prosthetic limbs to raise awareness about the global need for prostheses

15th-Century Pot of Gold (and Silver) Found in the Netherlands

Archaeologists say the coins can shed light on a little-known period of Dutch history

A sunny day in Finland, the world's happiest country in 2018 according to new UN report.

Europe

UN Report Finds Finland Is the Happiest Country in the World

In the 2018 World Happiness Report, Finland scored high on six key variables

The artist’s impression of "Self-Conscious Gene."

Europe

Sculpture of ‘Zombie Boy’ Fleshes Out London's Science Museum

A giant sculpture of artist and model Rick Genest, who has covered himself in tattoos of the inside of his body, will debut in its new Medicine Galleries

Cool Finds

Sunshine Sheds Light on 17th-Century Mystery Painting At Hearst Castle

Two bright-eyed guides found an abbreviation and inscription leading to Spanish painter Bartolomé Pérez de la Dehesa

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